ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s main opposition party pressed ahead Tuesday with its dayslong march on the capital to demand the release of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, even as Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif renewed an offer of fresh dialogue — conditional on the protesters turning back.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) march, which set out Sunday from Lakki Marwat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, had reached Kohat by Tuesday, its third day, according to the party. The convoy is led by KP Chief Minister Sohail Afridi and plans to converge on Islamabad in the coming days, after three rounds of government–PTI talks collapsed on Sunday morning.
Sharif said Tuesday that sit-ins and road blockades would damage the economy — hurting exports, factories, and workers — and offered talks if the march is called off. Authorities have erected container roadblocks at Islamabad’s entrances, and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi warned the KP leadership would be held responsible for any loss of life.
PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja said the march would continue until something is finalized, and named Senate opposition leader Allama Raja Nasir Abbas and Mahmood Khan Achakzai as authorized negotiators. The main deadlock issue, according to PTI officials, is access to Khan and his personal doctors.
The march marks the largest opposition mobilization in Pakistan in two years, led for the first time by a sitting provincial chief minister — a direct test of the Sharif government’s political stability and its strained relationship with the country’s military-backed establishment.
Khan, who was ousted as prime minister in 2022, has been in prison since August 2023 on charges his supporters say are politically motivated. His party says the march will continue until negotiations produce a concrete outcome on his release.
